Weekly Reader: 18 undeniably wonderful things about this NHL season

If you read this space regularly, you know I can sometimes delicately veer into negativity and pessimism if I'm discussing, say, video reviews for goalie interference. (But seriously: The Nashville Predators were straight-up hosed this week and the NHL is never going to get this right ever.)

But one cannot survive on bile alone. As the regular season comes to a close this weekend, it's about time to highlight some of the truly wonderful events, story lines and individuals from the 2017-18 NHL season. This isn't a ranking, nor does it portend to be a complete list -- no Emergency Blackhawks goalie, for example -- but it does cover many things that thawed this Arctic heart of mine over the…